


They Say "Everybody Lives," But Your World Died Anyway

by Shadaras



Series: a lioness' pride [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, F/F, Post-Battle of Yavin, sex is a questionable coping mechanism, the rest of the Rogue One crew is around too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 02:30:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10561904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: Dust settles over Yavin IV. The Rebellion lives, despite all odds. Two young women walk on the outskirts of the party celebrating unexpected life, remembering what was taken from them — and seeking some kind of pleasure together.





	

It all clicked for Jyn during the ceremony.

She wasn’t— none of them were there. None of them were getting medals for their “reckless mission” that “endangered everyone” and “could have ruined everything the Alliance has been working towards,” even if it _had_ been belatedly sanctioned by Admiral Raddus. She was watching it on a datapad in the medbay, with Bodhi still half-wrapped in bandages and Cassian glaring at his leg like he could will it into healing faster. The Guardians sat quietly, almost calmly, in a corner. Blaster wounds being easier to heal probably helped the sense of relaxation around them. Or maybe, Jyn admitted to herself, they were just better suited to sitting still than the rest of them.

Jyn could wander the base if she wanted to. Security and medstaff had both agreed, days ago, that she could – if she wanted to. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience to do so, since even with permission, she’s still watched by all the Rebellion members who think they know who she is. Was. It doesn’t matter.

She forced herself to stop thinking about it, and fixed her attention on the datapad instead. They saved the Rebellion and all they got is this stupid datapad showing them a static-laden holo of the award ceremony for some hotshot pilots, one of whom’s supposed to be a Jedi.

(Jyn’s heart tightened and her throat closed and she couldn’t _breathe_ the first time she heard that, because all she could think was _I wish Mom were here to see this_ , but her mom can’t, her mom’s been dead for long enough that her death is a crystal-clear nightmare with all the edges worn away from being turned over too many times.)

None of the others cared about paying attention to the ceremony, really. Bodhi’d snorted, when Jyn turned it on; “I don’t know how it’s going to be any different from Empire Day,” he’d said, bleakly, and then turned up the volume on the _Jedi Adventures!_ holo he was watching. He said it was to learn about things the Empire had banned; Jyn suspected he just wanted something mindless to watch while he was bleary on pain meds.

Cassian, on the other hand, had been on his own datapad ever since they returned from Scarif. Well. Ever since he’d woken up, anyway (and Jyn still hated how much of a relief it was, when he’d woken up from the bacta infusions). He’d asked Jyn to get his personal datapad from the quarters he theoretically used for sleeping but really seemed to just use for storage while he and K2 were on their potentially-deadly missions. He’d disappeared into coding as soon as she’d handed it to him, and mostly came out of his haze when his meds wore off and he had to swear about his still-not-healed leg and how sore his spine still was, instead of making sure that K2’s backup was safe.

As the ceremony started, Jyn thought that he was deep in his coding trance, but he’d looked up and grimaced when the speeches started. “Maybe they’ll be able to think about next steps, once this is over with,” he said.

“Like K2 getting a new body?” Jyn asked absently. They’d been over this several times. Once Cassian’s up again, he’ll go hound the techs, and Jyn gets to watch someone _else_ get assessed and found wanting by Cassian’s intense gaze.

Cassian’s mouth twitched. “Yes.”

Jyn didn’t follow that thread of conversation. As much as she doesn’t want to admit it, life wasn’t complete without a complaining sarcastic droid. Ever since he’d woken up, it was like part of Cassian was missing; he kept starting phrases and leaving jokes hanging that made the space around him emptier than it should be.

Admiral Ackbar finished his speech, and a brief musical interlude commenced. Jyn stretched and glanced over at Baze and Chirrut instead, the only ones who hadn’t yet commented at all. She tried not to look at them too much, because looking at them made her think about how Baze could also walk out whenever he wanted to, but didn’t because Chirrut was still healing. Which was exactly the same reason she was still there, but at least Baze admitted it. They were still silent, and meditating, though, so Jyn bit the inside of her lip and turned back to the ceremony. Watching it hurt less than thinking about how her mother used to meditate, anyway.

She’d told everyone she’d listen to the speeches to see if they even _mentioned_ the efforts of _Rogue One_ and Galen Erso. Bodhi and Chirrut thought both would be mentioned, when they’d placed bets yesterday; Cassian suspected that _Rogue One_ would be obliquely referred to but Galen Erso would be omitted, and as angry as she felt about that, Jyn agreed with him. Baze hadn’t placed a bet at all; he’d just shook his head at the lot of them and told Chirrut that they didn’t even have anything to bet.

Jyn slouched into her chair as Mon Mothma’s speech droned on. She was saying something about the good the Alliance will do for the galaxy with the symbol of this victory over the Empire. The entirety of Scarif was a footnote, and Jyn grimaced. She tuned Mon Mothma out and contemplated the Rebellion’s members instead. They were surprisingly alert, but Jyn had heard that they’d been working double-shifts ever since Scarif. As Mon Mothma finally finished talking, the camera swivelled to follow the Hotshot Pilot War Heroes, and Jyn sighed. “No mentions of us at all,” she said to the room at large. “Baze wins by default.”

Chirrut laughed, and Cassian’s frown deepened. Bodhi and Baze didn’t react at all.

The camera kept following the Hotshot Pilots. Jyn was about to turn the holo off when the woman handing out medals caught her attention. She wore all-white, with a silver necklace and belt, and her smile was familiar. Jyn squinted, and then zoomed in on her face. She couldn’t get rid of the static from the shitty transmission quality, but there was something there...

Jyn caught herself before she swore. Beneath all the makeup and static, there was the lovely young woman Jyn had met before Scarif. She turned off the holo before she thought about it more, because explaining this to Cassian would be far more work than she wanted to do today.

Chirrut noticed her react anyway, somehow. Jyn had stopped trying to understand what he could and couldn’t notice days ago. He whispered something to Baze, and Baze’s expression shifted; no longer an implacable crag, but just stony and disapproving. Jyn scowled back; his smile is not something she wanted.

Outside, through the windows, she heard the beginning of cheering and music. It was a better excuse to leave than anything else she could think of, at least. Jyn leaned forward and placed the datapad on the edge of Cassian’s bed, then stood and stretched. Every single bruise, sprain, and strain that the Rebellion didn’t have the resources to patch up hurt as she moved, and she ignored them with the same steady refusal to think about how easily she’d gotten off that she’d been cultivating since they got back.

“I’m going to steal some of the alcohol they’ve got to have at that party,” she announced.

Cassian looked up from his datapad. “See if they’ll let you bring us some.”

Jyn snorted. “The medics will steal it all before you have a chance to have any.”

“Sounds like a challenge,” Bodhi said from the next bed over.

Jyn paused, startled that he’d been listening, and then relaxed enough to smile properly. “Yeah, okay. We’ll see.”

“Have fun!” Chirrut called as Jyn exited. She waved a hand back at him, ignoring how it made her shoulder twinge, and flipped him the bird as she left the room. By the laughter echoing out of Medical, at least one of her— her friends (and it’s so strange to think that and _mean_ it, after years of running from any but the briefest of intimacies) caught the gesture.

The party proper had started during the ceremony, Jyn suspected, by the number of people already running around drunk. Or it had started with the fireworks of the Death Star’s explosion, two days ago, and it just hadn’t _stopped_ yet – the ceremony had been the briefest pause where the Rebellion’s leadership had called a ceasefire between the ground troops and the pilots and made sure the necessary parties were able to stand and speak coherently for an hour.

Jyn thought about it, and then shook her head and headed up the inner stairs of the Massassi temple. Her legs complained at every step, reminding her that she’d taken enough aching steps on Scarif and that her ankle still hadn’t healed, but she ignored them. A party was great if you wanted alcohol and forgetfulness, but if you were mourning as much as you celebrated victory, you’d be a buzzkill. The Princess Leia Organa was from Alderaan; there’d been enough whispers and fretting about her disappearance when _Rogue One_ had limped back in with the rest of the surviving fleet that it was hard to forget the name.

She just hadn’t connected it to the name and face of the person who she’d fucked her own grief-ridden anxieties into and through between Eadu and Scarif until now. Jyn stepped through a door onto the temple’s massive outer tiers and almost choked on the muggy heat. The indoor spaces have terrifyingly good air processing. Jyn shoved her hair back out of her face, where it’s threatening to stick, and continued to contemplate how Leia-the-one-night-stand (who she’s now looking for, and she shoved that thought out of her mind as best she could before it finished and she needed to dwell on it) and Leia-the-princess-of-Alderaan are the same person. She hadn’t connected them before, and that was okay, because there had been enough other things running through her mind.

The jungle was wild and bright and boilingly _alive_. Jyn’s heart had been beating fast and wild since they left for Scarif, and now it... it wasn’t slow, certainly, but steady, maybe, or measured – she had space to listen to the shrieks and howls of woolamanders in the distance, somewhere beyond the myriad sentients of the Rebellion whooping and shouting loud enough to wake the long dead race who had made the temples to begin with.

She’d missed this, Jyn realised, in the same heartbeat as she realised that she hadn’t been outside since Scarif.

_Rogue One_ had pulled into the base, and there had been medical staff and Intelligence staff and a barrage of people asking questions, and then the medbay had been the only place that was _quiet_ and not full of people wanting to talk to them, and then... Jyn breathed, in and out, and looked up at the sky. Yavin hung hot and heavy along the horizon, gilding everything with fire. She had stayed in the medbay except for brief errands around the base.

She’d forgotten how much she hated being stuck on ships, or even just in rooms that pretend to not be prisons. Jyn let the pervasive sense of _life_ fill her, an antidote to the lingering smell of death and antiseptic that’s haunted every moment of her time in the temple, and let herself forget everything else for a moment, even the reason she had walked out of the medbay and into the open air to begin with.

When Jyn finally looked down from the sky, she saw another person – white-gowned, brown-haired – sitting in the shadow of the next step’s shroud of vines. Jyn swallowed, and snapped back into the reality of her self-assigned mission. Her heart sped up again; she hadn’t been sure if Leia would be here. She looked just like she had on the holo, but she’d picked up a glass of something (probably alcohol) somewhere along the way. If she’d seen Jyn, she wasn’t showing it.

Jyn didn’t try to mask her approach. If Leia saw her, so be it. But the princess didn’t move, just continued looking down at the eminently practical cup that she held. Jyn hesitated, a pace away from her, and then scowled to herself and sat down next to her, leaving the width of a body between them. The vine-covered stone was cool against her back, but not particularly comfortable, with the overcrossings of greenery.

Then she waited. She wasn’t very good at it, but she’d been getting a lot of practice at it lately in the medbay.

Finally, Leia said – snapped, really – “Why are you even _here?_ ”

“Dunno.” Jyn stretched. One of her vertebrae popped, and she rolled her shoulders to settle them again. She turned towards Leia, who was glaring at her, and said, “Why’d you find me after Eadu?”

“That’s—”

If _different_ wasn’t the word that Leia’s lips close around, Jyn would eat her shirt. Jyn rested sideways against the wall. The vines were a little more comfortable that way. “They’re only talking about the people who lived.” It had the benefit of being true; she’d walked by enough carousing members of the Rebellion on her way here to know the names they shouted, and that they were pilots one and all.

“They’re also talking about heroes.” Leia set her cup down and wrapped her arms around her knees. She looked _young_ for the first time that Jyn could think of, in a way that wasn’t about her chronological age but about how _safe_ she’d been in her family and knowledge that they’d be there for her. “Dying in battle is a tragedy.”

“Dying unremembered is a worse one.” Jyn pressed on the kyber crystal under her shirt, warm and sharp against her skin. The edges still weren’t smoothed, despite the years she’s spent clutching it in her hands, the last talismanic piece of her childhood.

“They’re going to be remembered,” Leia said. Her gaze was fixed up into the sky, in such a specific direction that Jyn guessed Alderaan is – _was_ along that path.

Jyn moved closer. She didn’t need to do this, she told herself, but the movement happened anyway. “Yeah. But not today, when everyone else is celebrating a victory.”

Leia dropped her eyes from the sky, turned to her, and – Jyn had thought she’d seen them properly, last week, but they seem different now. They’re still deep brown, and more intense than the soft lines of her face at rest imply, but they’re more haunted now, too. Jyn stared back into Leia’s eyes, refusing to give way this time, or say anything more until Leia did. Her half-healed sprained ankle was protesting the amount of weight resting on it, but that couldn’t matter right now; the only thing that could was reminding Leia that—

( _Not everything runs away just because you’re sad,_ Saw had told her when she was ten years old. _Grief will not keep you safe._ He’d handed her the blaster she’d thrown away and told her _Again_ until she’d shot the target, tears blurring her vision so badly that she’d had to trust that he wouldn’t point her at a person, that he’d tell her if someone wandered into the path of her wild bolts, sobs wrenched from her throat and thrust through her hands into the pistol almost too large for them.)

When she was sixteen and Saw abandoned her, she’d limped out of hiding and lost herself in a port bar and fucked her way into a berth heading _somewhere else_ , and she wasn’t— Jyn swore under her breath and dropped her eyes as fire sparked in Leia’s. She wasn’t going to let Leia do anything _that_ self-destructive if she could help it.

“What,” Leia said, “do you _want?_ ”

Jyn laughed at the steel rising up in Leia’s voice. “I’m not sure,” she said lightly. “What do _you_ want?”

“I want my family back. My planet. The friends who I’d thought were _safe_ there, the refugees we gave sanctuary to—” Leia scrubbed tears out of her eyes with the back of a hand, vicious and half-shouting. “You _know_ that, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Jyn grinned, and leaned back against the wall, letting her eyes slipped closed in a show of laziness and uncaring. “I do.”

“What are you _playing_ at, Jyn?”

“You want to punch something?”

“Yes. You.”

Jyn smirked. “Wanna kiss me instead?”

“Fucking— Insufferable—”

Jyn heard the jingle of Leia’s silver belt and necklace, so when fine-woven silk brushed her cheek, she wasn’t surprised. She still didn’t expect the harshness of Leia’s hand tightening in her hair, and her eyes flew open as her head hit the stone wall, barely cushioned by either her hair or Leia’s hand.

“What—” she started saying, and then Leia bit her.

Raw teeth, harsh and messy on her open mouth; no tongue but plenty of force to keep Jyn pressed against the vines and thinking of nothing else. Jyn almost choked, with how Leia surrounded her, tongue wet and warm and frustratingly compelling as it filled her mouth with the bittersweet taste of Alderaanian wine that Leia must’ve been drinking before coming to watch the jungle.

Jyn tore herself away from fixating on Leia and Leia’s mouth. She had to have control. Something resembling it, at least. Her hands slid up Leia’s sides, pressing through thin, slick silk to feel the ridges of Leia’s bra underneath. She started following the contours around to Leia’s chest, and then Leia laughed a little, breath going straight into Jyn’s mouth, and brushed her hands away. When Jyn started reaching again, Leia rested her weight on Jyn’s elbows, sliding both of them down the wall so that Jyn was lying down almost entirely, Leia spread on top of her.

This had backfired. _Fuck._ Jyn tried to sit up, experimentally. It worked about as well as she had expected – which was to say, not at all. Leia pushed up, pinning Jyn even as she got enough distance to look Jyn square in the eyes. “Remember, this was _your_ idea.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Jyn rasped. She licked her lips. “We could go somewhere more comfortable.”

“No,” Leia said. She tilted her head thoughtfully. Her hair was still in neat braids, with barely any strands out of place. Her makeup hadn’t even smeared. Jyn hated her a little for the perfection of her presentation, and hated herself for how noticing it made her nerves buzz. “I think I like it out here.”

Jyn let her head drop against the wall and stared up at the sky.

“Are you worried that someone will see us?” Leia lowered herself onto Jyn, until her lips were brushing against Jyn’s throat. “You _did_ close the door out here, didn’t you?”

“I did.” Jyn kept herself still. Leia’s lips should not be there. It should not be okay that this was happening. She had offered her neck; she shouldn’t be so surprised that Leia had taken her up on the offer. “I’m not worried.”

Leia licked a line along Jyn’s throat. Jyn shivered as the air felt cool against the moisture, so different from the stickiness of every other bit of skin. When her tongue reached Jyn’s collarbone, Leia lifted her head and asked, “Was kissing all you were offering?”

Jyn closed her eyes. “No.”

“What else?”

_A better alternative to losing yourself in drink_ , Jyn thought. _A way to lose yourself that doesn’t harm you irreversibly. A way to forget how much it hurts, for a time._ She swallowed down all those thoughts, and said, with as much blithe sarcasm as she could muster, “Biting. Obviously.” Then, quickly and more quietly, she added, “Sex. Though I hadn’t expected to stay outside.”

Leia tapped her finger against Jyn’s arm. “This doesn’t bother you?”

“I expected it to.” Jyn grimaced. She hadn’t meant to say that, even though it was true. “It’s okay.”

“Huh.” Leia released her arms anyway and sat up. Cautiously, Jyn opened her eyes and braced herself more comfortably. Leia was looking at her with the same intensity that Jyn saw in Cassian’s eyes when he found a complicated problem to solve. Without moving her eyes, Leia reached for her cup and took a sip. She set it back down again with the same care, but a little further away from their bodies. Leia said, “You really are offering, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” It was easier to say than Jyn had worried it would be. It wasn’t even a lie. “It—” the words caught in her throat, and she swallowed. Leia waited, eyes sharp, hands resting too-gently on her shoulders. Jyn tried again, forcing the words out in fits and starts. “It might still be a kind of oblivion, but it helps more than booze can. Knowing that you’re alive. That someone else is alive. That you’re alive together.”

Leia’s eyes tracked her, dark and unreadable, as she spoke. When she finally lapsed into silence, Leia traced one pale finger along her neck and up around her ear, until Leia’s hand curved around her head, holding it. Jyn stayed still, her breathing quickening at the light touch. Leia gently guided Jyn into sitting up (and her muscles protested on principle, not because any of her core muscles were actually injured), until they were sitting face-to-face, noses an inch from each other. They were almost of a height, with Leia in her lap, Jyn noticed. She kept her hands resting lightly on Leia’s thighs, waiting for – for Leia to find whatever it was she was looking for in Jyn’s face.

When Leia kissed her, it took Jyn a moment to notice. This wasn’t anything like the other kisses they’d shared; there’s no teeth, nor tongue; just gentle lips and and almost intoxicating sweetness so unlike the desperation that Jyn had been more expecting. Leia drew back after a few seconds, and Jyn leaned to follow without even realising what she was doing for half a breath. Then Leia said, “Okay,” and smiled, and the tension Jyn had been holding in her shoulders disappeared. “We’re still doing this outside.”

“That’s fine,” Jyn said. “So long as there’s something between me and the ground.”

“I think we can manage that.” Leia’s smile eased the lines in her forehead, and Jyn breathed out, a sigh of relief and a release of tension she hadn’t quite been aware of holding. Leia reached into Jyn’s hair, and undid her messy bun so that her hair fell all over her shoulders. Jyn shivered at the sensation, and then arched her back into the gentle almost-tugging of Leia’s fingers running through her hair. Her eyes drifted closed, and Leia said, “We’re going to be okay,” quietly enough that it reminded Jyn almost more of a prayer.

“The Force is with us,” Jyn said.

Leia stilled. Very slowly, she said, “Yes. It is.”

Then Leia kissed Jyn again, hand tightening in her hair, pushing her back into the wall, and Jyn let herself fall away into the moment and forget her worries in the rush of nerves lighting up along her scalp and down her spine.

Tomorrow wasn’t here yet. She could lose herself again in thoughts of today.


End file.
